With the accelerating advent of artificial intelligence (AI) reshaping economies and societies at an unprecedented pace, the blockchain sector is no exception. As a representative project at the intersection of these two transformative domains, Worldcoin—now rebranded as World Network (abbreviated as World)—has recently undergone significant changes. These include its official rebranding, the launch of the World Chain mainnet, and substantial updates to several flagship ecosystem products, such as the Orb device, World ID, and World App, signaling the project’s entry into a new phase of development.

This article will provide a detailed analysis of the key updates to the World project, exploring its evolution, controversies, and future prospects to offer readers a comprehensive perspective.

The Evolution of World

Artificial intelligence (AI) is profoundly transforming how we live and work. However, the rapid development of this disruptive technology has gradually shifted user sentiment from initial excitement and anticipation to fear and frustration.

This change in attitude stems from a confluence of real-world challenges. While AI has generated immense wealth for human society, it has also replaced many jobs through automation, leaving individuals vulnerable to unemployment. Moreover, the misuse of AI technology, such as deepfake capabilities, has raised concerns about its potential to spread misinformation or enable cyber fraud. As AI increasingly integrates into everyday applications, distinguishing between humans and machines is becoming remarkably difficult.

Source: World

World was founded to create an identity verification system that allows individuals to assert their humanity without revealing their real-world identities, ensuring they are distinct from any other person. Building on this foundation, the project aspires to alleviate poverty and economic inequality by offering Universal Basic Income (UBI), promoting financial inclusion.

Established in 2020, World was co-founded by the renowned OpenAI founder Sam Altman. From its inception, World garnered significant market attention due to its ambitious mission and high-profile leadership.

World’s mission is to establish a globally inclusive identity and financial network. Its ecosystem revolves around four core pillars: the digital identity system World ID, the application World App, the blockchain network World Chain, and the cryptocurrency Worldcoin ($WLD). At the heart of its identity solution is World ID, a biometric verification system that uses a specialized hardware device called the Orb to perform iris scans to create and verify unique identities.

On July 24, 2023, the $WLD token was officially launched. Over a year later, on October 18, 2024, Worldcoin announced its rebranding to World Network (shortened to World) and the official rollout of its Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain mainnet, World Chain.

Over the past four years, World has completed three rounds of financing, raising a total of $240 million. Key investors include a16z, Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital, DCG, Hypersphere Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Blockchain Capital, and other prominent industry players.

As of now, World reports approximately 7.5 million unique users. The World App has over 16 million users, and World ID holders span over 160 countries. Regarding Worldcoin, data from CoinGecko reveals a circulating supply of around 623 million tokens. At a current price of $2.19, the circulating market capitalization of $WLD is approximately $1.364 billion, ranking it 74th globally in cryptocurrency market capitalization.

World’s Latest Upgrades

On October 18, during an event titled “New World” held in San Francisco, World co-founders Alex Blania and Sam Altman, along with other core team members, discussed several significant updates to the project. These updates included:

Orb 2.0

The Orb is a custom open-source hardware device developed for the World project by Tools for Humanity (TFH), one of World’s contributors. It captures and processes human iris patterns to create and verify a person’s World ID as a digital code. Privacy is a core focus of the Orb, as all verification activities are performed locally on the user’s device. Once identity verification is complete, all images are permanently deleted from the Orb, and the system undergoes regular third-party audits to ensure compliance.

Source: World

The upgraded Orb device is powered by the latest NVIDIA Jetson chipset, which boosts AI performance by nearly fivefold to enable faster and more efficient human verification. It features enhanced infrared and visible-light cameras and 5G connectivity to support a broader range of environments and setups.

The next-generation Orb introduces support for Face Auth facial recognition and World ID physical credential verification to accommodate diverse identity verification needs. Facial recognition, launched in mid-September, allows users to verify their World ID using face authentication. Meanwhile, physical credential verification lets users access the World ecosystem with documents like verified passports, bypassing the need for an Orb entirely, and without disclosing their real-world identity.

World App 3.0

The World App, designed and developed by Tools for Humanity, serves as the primary interface for World ID. It enables users to securely store their World ID, exchange digital assets, and access Mini Apps.

Source: World

According to official reports, the World App is now the third-largest crypto wallet globally, with over 150 million transactions and $1.5 billion in trading volume. While earlier versions of the World App primarily focused on a few key features related to Worldcoin and Ethereum, the upgraded World App 3.0 introduces a broader range of practical functionalities. These include support for World Chain, World Pay, and a new Vault feature for enhanced asset security.

Additionally, World App 3.0 will soon launch World ID Deep Face, a feature designed to combat the growing threat of deepfake fraud.

World Chain Mainnet Launch

World Chain aims to ensure that blockchain technology prioritizes benefits for humanity, with its current focus on anonymous human verification and financial access. Built as a Layer 2 (L2) network on the OP Stack, World Chain inherits Ethereum’s security guarantees.

From its launch, World Chain has gained support from numerous blockchain service providers and applications, including Optimism, Alchemy, Uniswap, Safe, Dune, Fireblocks, and Etherscan. To encourage user adoption, verified addresses can enjoy zero gas transaction fees.

Source: World

For developers, the World team actively invites applications for funding from the World Foundation to build innovative products on World Chain. These could include voting, social media, and governance applications, further enriching the network’s ecosystem.

World ID 3.0

World ID 3.0 focuses on expanding accessibility to a broader range of users. To achieve this, the World ID physical credential verification method, designed to help individuals who have not yet had the opportunity to verify their identity through the Orb device, is introduced. Ensuring data privacy remains a priority in this upgrade. World ID 3.0 employs Anonymous Multi-Party Computation (AMPC) and leverages the NVIDIA H100 GPU as its primary computation platform, achieving up to 50 million unique pairwise comparisons per second.

Source: World

In addition to these features, World plans to collaborate with governments to build secure, human-centered digital infrastructure powered by World ID.

Worldcoin Rebranded as World

The team believes that, as the project has grown in scale and as the significance of the World ID proof-of-humanity protocol has increased, the name “Worldcoin” no longer fully encapsulates the project’s overarching mission: to accelerate inclusion for all humanity. Consequently, Worldcoin has been rebranded as World Network, or simply World.

With its three key pillars—World Chain, World ID, and the Worldcoin ($WLD) token—the World team aims to create a network of real, verified humans. Through these updates, the project hopes to attract a wider user base and scale its verified human population of approximately 7 million to 700 million or more.

Ongoing Controversies Surrounding World

Despite major announcements, the market’s reaction to World’s updates has been lukewarm. After an initial 20% surge in the price of the Worldcoin ($WLD) token on the day of the announcements, the momentum quickly faded, and the price resumed its downward trend, even dipping below its recent starting point.

Source: Gate.io

In reality, controversies surrounding the World project have persisted since its inception and have intensified over the past year.

One of the earliest and most prominent criticisms targeted the project’s approach to user data privacy and security. In 2021, renowned cybersecurity expert Edward Snowden strongly criticized the project, arguing that merely deleting iris scan data was insufficient to address privacy concerns. He also urged users to avoid using biometrics for any application.

Beyond professional criticism, World has faced regulatory scrutiny and bans in several countries and regions, including Spain, Portugal, South Korea, Kenya, and Hong Kong. Authorities in these regions have commonly argued that collecting facial and iris images is unfair, illegal, and violates data protection principles.

In addition to concerns about biometric data collection, issues related to $WLD’s market-making, large-scale token unlocks, and alleged price manipulation by the team have drawn sharp criticism from the community.

In July, a trader known as @DefiSquared on X (formerly Twitter) published an investigative report on World, accusing the project of price manipulation and misleading advertising. Using detailed data, the report claimed that $WLD’s actual circulating supply on its first trading day was suspiciously higher than the official figures provided. Furthermore, during token unlock periods, the World Foundation reportedly sold a greater portion of tokens than disclosed, and the team repeatedly released positive news to manipulate $WLD’s price, allowing insiders to cash out at inflated valuations.

Source: X @DefiSquared

Adding to the skepticism, multiple market makers engaged in short-term profit-taking around the time of the major updates. On-chain analysis from Coinwire revealed that market maker GSR MARKET deposited $3 million worth of $WLD into Binance and sold it all during the price spike. Similarly, Alameda Research transferred approximately 1.7 million $WLD to Binance over the past three months.

Faced with a growing trust crisis, the recent updates appear to be an attempt by World to salvage the project. However, judging by the market’s response, the impact has been limited. While World has achieved some progress in areas like developer ecosystems, market and community building, and product development over the past few years, it has failed to meet community expectations regarding the utility of $WLD.

In this update, the team acknowledged the limitations of biometric verification in driving user growth. To reach a broader audience, World has, for the first time, introduced support for physical credential verification, moving away from its heavy reliance on the Orb device. Additionally, the team added more features to its key products to address the diverse needs of its users.

However, there has been little substantive progress regarding the value proposition of $ WLD. As the core token of the World ecosystem, $WLD’s primary function appears to be liquidation. Both token holders and early investors rely on selling $WLD for returns. Without real-world applications to back its value, the token’s worth seems illusory—a root cause of unease among the market and its holders.

Conclusion

One of World’s core philosophies is “Proof of Human,” a concept aimed at building human-centric infrastructure. The team has consistently worked towards advancing this vision. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has stated that while specific implementations, such as World’s use of biometric technology, carry inherent risks, the fundamental idea of proof of humanity remains immensely valuable.

World has continuously upgraded its technologies and products to achieve safer and more privacy-focused solutions. However, in pursuing its other key goal—fair resource distribution and the provision of Universal Basic Income (UBI)—the team still has significant ground to cover. Beyond these objectives, the most pressing challenge for World is to deeply reflect on and address how to imbue $WLD with tangible value and utility. Doing so is crucial to restoring market confidence and regaining the trust of token holders.